


On Broadway

by DannyBarefoot



Series: What we do in the Shadows [1]
Category: Damon Runyon - Fandom, Shadowrun
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes & Criminals, Cyberpunk, Dialect, Gen, Hacking, New York City, Rock Stars, Seattle, Sex Work, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22388824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DannyBarefoot/pseuds/DannyBarefoot
Summary: Derived Character Oneshot. Damon Runyon, Maria Mercurial, and an inimitable dwarf decker from the Big Apple.
Series: What we do in the Shadows [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612357
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	On Broadway

**Author's Note:**

> This story is in the inimitable style of Damon Runyon's prohibition-era short stories, and riffs on his tales 'Blood Pressure', 'Neat Strip', 'Broadway Financier', 'A Very Honourable Guy', and 'Madam Le Gimp', filmed as 'Lady for a Day'. For the incidents of the Shadowrun mission, and the only way I can knock off 5000 word plot bunnies through my hand slipping is to plug my characters into pre-made plots, I have to thank the Shadowrun Identity team very much for their UGC adaption of the tabletop 'Mercurial' campaign.

On a certain evening in the winter of 2050, a well-known resident of the Redmond Barrens, Old Sam by name, gets the idea of calling up some discreetly reliable operator who may be described as a shadowrunner, for such a job as he has that may require the services of same. And whose commlink does he dial but mine, just as I am setting my cyberdeck down in the old fleabag of a residence known as the doghouse, in that fine old neighbourhood of Puyallup, and heartily wishing I am back in the Big Apple with some chicken soup and cheesecake such as they serve at Mindy’s.

But owing to a terrible heatwave throughout New York, and I am a very sensitive guy with regard to the weather, I am flitting to Puyallup, Seattle, and the apology for a safehouse known to one and all as the doghouse, with all due haste. In fact, such haste that the previous residents have not yet vacated, though this is perhaps because I stumble over their bodies left most inconsiderately in the entryway. Also, the unfragrant bodies of several Badges, who are evidently geeked in the process of doing the geeking, though I never meet an ungeeked Badge who smells so good. Furthermore, a couple of half-starved doggies making a meal of the said cadavers; indeed, if I am less quick with the old Fichetti equaliser, they will be making a meal of me, so you see the name of this joint is most appropriate. I wish it to be understood that I am normally fond of animals at all times, even after that hellhound almost parts my face from my skull on the Fuichi job two years previous, but it seems the ripperdoc neglects to give me rabies shots on my last visit.

I am acquainted with Old Sam from certain earlier visits to Seattle, and he is usually a swell Fix, even when only a little soused up, which is the best he gets. I do give him no little beef when he calls me, though I am usually a very friendly guy, but then there is so much unfriendliness around in Puyallup that it will drive a party to drink, and visibly most of its probationary citizens to novacoke and glue. Furthermore, it looks as if a kid troll shouting Moma could knock this whole berg down, poisoning him and the remainder of the metroplex with such a cloud of toxic fumes as would be raised withal. The glowing reviews Sam mentions for local property are most likely glowing away from the old radiation. In fact it is Sam who recommends to me the doghouse. Sam, however, now recommends to me shut-your-hole, and moreover, just-keep-the-old-stiff-upper-lip, stumpy. I know Old Sam has many troubles in his life himself, since his swell family cuts him off many years ago, and he keeps his upper lip stiffly fastened on the mouth of a bottle.

“Listen, Broadway, you lousy dwarf,” Sam says to me like (For Broadway is my handle, on these streets, and I am somewhat of the dwarfish persuasion), “I just left Max Foley, the big music producer with Lowball Records, under the impression that some chill customers would be meeting him without fail at Club Underworld 93, tonight. Put a crew of Runners together and get there by two, or both our names will be mud in this town.”

Now I am suffering somewhat from high blood pressure after taking care of the hounds, and in addition this is most high-handed behaviour of Sam indeed, and not at all suggestive that whatever this Foley wishes me and mine to carry out will be any milk run. Furthermore, Sam’s name is the closest thing to mud in this town anyway. So I tell Sam that, having just touched down in the Emerald City, I do not know of any such desperate characters as may answer his purpose, which answer it is my habit to give out for the Badges in any case.

But Sam keeps grousing away, and it soon becomes clear this is a swell job indeed. In fact, Sam and myself will be laughed out of Touristville as rank suckers if we are so soft as not to hear more of it. The old headware memory, of which I have more than somewhat, and very useful for doping odds, counting cards or catching cheats it is too, begins cranking out the handles of likely chummers residing in Seattle, New York, Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even Quebec with whom I might mob up, if I can indeed collar them before two, and if they are not getting geeked or retiring some time previously. 

It seems this Foley character will pay in advance for a team of Runners, so it is not required that I hire a team with my own nyuyen; a dicey proposition indeed, as I have not so much as will buy half a gnome. Furthermore, this Foley is permitting us to enter Club Underworld 93 without paying for same, and this is most remarkable to hear because the Trid news is raving like anything about the exceedingly famous crooner Maria Mercurial, and her concert this night at that very place. I acquire several tickets myself but sell them on at ten times face price to pay for moving expenses, also the gambling debts I pick up between Puyallup and the airport, for I really prefer Blues and Soul to such wild, rocky songs as Miss Mercurial sings. But many other parties of every age and metatype consider her songs the best thing since the orks were put out of sight underground, and if Foley is offering these tickets to Runners who will storm the private office of Lofwyr he will be mobbed with takers, at that.

-0-

Laying violent hands upon my hat and coat, after telling Sam that his proposition is a golden one, I proceed to the Shadows bar several alleys along, not trusting my person to the main streets for fear of the wide-open spaces, also troll gangers such as the Rusted Stilettos. The local watering hole is very deficient in lighting and seem to be additionally a strip joint, so many solid probationary citizens who have no tickets for Underworld 93, or perhaps do not care for music, are observing the blonde doll on the pole show off her very artistic shape. I consider her a neat strip, but nothing worth mentioning compared to Viola Rose from the Apple Barrel bar in Manhattan.

She is an elvish doll with enough gold in her hair to buy out Shiawase with the change from acquiring Saeder Krupp. Her eyes are as blue as no ocean left in the world, what with these oilspills we seem to be always having. Her smile will have the Trojans and the Greeks going for their nuclear buttons over her favours at once, and her shape is as close to perfect as anything in this bad old world can be close to perfect. Still, many dolls who are almost so looking work in her line for starvation wages, so it must be her gift of the gab that gets her noticed by a big simsense producer. Some ill-disposed persons claim that Viola is a little dumb to accept a contract for the kind of simsense this party wants her to make out in Calfree, but I may become a little dumb myself if I am offered so many nyuyen. Assuming it is for something other than removing my clothes in front of an audience, or whatever else, further assuming that any audience would part with their dough to see such a thing, for at the very least I imagine it becomes quite monotonous. Probably Viola Rose is finding it very monotonous too by this time, but if she ever wishes to stop making these simsense in Calfree, the mob partners of the guys who pay her all that nyuyen will take issue with this.

I cannot speak of cute elvish dolls without being reminded of Silk, who takes a Renraku executive for 3 million nyuyen and some. She then gives all of it but ‘some’ to the folk who are poisoned by this executive’s scant regard for waste disposal laws in our fair US of C and A, which is assuredly worth being reminded of. The chances are that I will never see a looking doll in my life but I think of Silk, and maybe with a tear or so at that, though I hear she and the Lemon Drop Kid, since she gets him off the Jazz, are very happy in their retirement together.

I find I am also reminded of my old chummer Feet Samuels, who once informs me of his intention to clear off his gambling debts to the Yaks by selling his body. This strikes me as a very unlikely proposition, for the Yaks cannot swing a bat in Hell’s Kitchen, N.Y. City, without knocking out a better-looking young guy than old Feet for their _Bunraku_ parlours. But it appears I get the wrong idea. A representative of Tamanous, the blackest-of-black market organleggers, has informed Feet that he is what is called a universal donor, and that if he is not using his bodily organs for anything very important, they will fetch a fine price indeed. Feet says it is alright if they look after his doll and their three kids when he is gone, for he is sufficiently cut up about these debts to blow his own brain out for nothing.

What Feet does not figure, being an ork from Brooklyn with no college education, is that his kids are more than likely to be universal donors as well, if he is. Tamanous takes them also and connects them to a machine for cloning blood and organs on a factory basis, next to poor Feet for all I know. His doll they simply rub out, and sell off her organs wholesale, which is lucky for her if half the stories about what Tamanous do to certain females are even half true–and considering all the many terrible things that happen to females every day, in every city of this world.

You may be asking, why did I not take issue with the biggest and most murderous of global organlegging syndicates over the turn they had served my chummer, or rather, acquaintance, and put in such a complaint as to make them sit up and take notice? To which I would not have much answer, since I am such a guy as does a great deal more listening than talking, except that any dealings I have with Tamanous are very bad for my blood pressure. I will say that whatever I do feel about all the unhappy stories I am acquainted with in my time makes as little difference to even this little town as a hill of beans, or maybe less. And when I am carrying about 400 MP of headware memory up there in the old cerebellum, filled with the stories of green Runners I see die too soon, or sad old has-beens who live too long…perhaps there is no room left over for me to feel so much, at that.

But to return to my original scene, and prevent a long tale from becoming longer than strictly necessary, I am soon speaking with a fair number of eager young parties as are taking their first steps into the shadows, such as may be found in any Shadows bar at any time. Such parties as these are always wishing to see swift action, though they may wish they had waited longer when they see it. I smile friendly-like, and let them gab on about their stories, for these are green Runners, and if green Runners dearly love one thing it is to tell their stories.

There is Siouxie Susie, an adept from Salish-Shidhe, who speaks softly of the warrior destiny in her blood and is a very sweet doll at that, with hair black as a moonless night. There is Gunner Jane, who is laid off from a security firm, and clearly possessed of a decent head on her shoulders, also she is a very good-looking troll indeed, though I personally like them not so big. Then there is Padre, who is so called because he is in fact a padre in the order of St Sylvester, and a wiz mage with a heal spell or a stunbolt also. Furthermore, there is a cute young decker who says she always has a thing for dwarves (what sort of thing I do not ask, but her capers cause no little consternation to the Padre), and also an elf who claims he is Tir royalty until he goes loopy from too much cyberware and starts geeking certain parties. In the cases of these last two, I stand them a drink and give a very prompt good evening.

Many chummers will tell you I am more of a hustler than a Runner. I will at all times trade any gear or intelligence that I can get such a thing as nyuyen for, especially if the intelligence might be related to gambling of any description, or fixes on same. My decking will never be spoken of in the same sentence as Dodger or FastJack, nor even in the same book, and my reputation in person is that I am practically harmless. However, I am able to assemble a team of Runners in less time than it takes to tell, without a mention of Maria Mercurial, among fresh chummers who I never meet before tonight. I remember their stories also, every detail of the way they tell them, as if they are all laughing here over their hopes and wishes this very moment. Perhaps for this purpose I am put into this world (Although an ork street sam present who extinguishes his cigarette–at the lit end–on the pole dancer’s rear end, soon finds all his accounts wiped, and Lone Star holding a fresh warrant over him, in a most unaccountable way).

“Broadway. The broad way that leads to destruction?”

Padre makes this crack to me, smiling very white and straight. It seems he is saying that my name appears in this Bible of his, and of course he is telling me about it, for why else would a man of the cloth be about a strip joint with Runners and other villains?

“A broad way with much company is always good enough for myself, Padre. Furthermore, I will have less concern about destruction at the end than falling off half-way.”

-0-

So myself, Souixie Susie, Gunner Jane and Padre take a bus to Underworld 93 on the edge of Puyallup. There is no little queue for the door, despite the cold and rain. In fact it stretches around the block more times than the Lambton Wyrm, also hissing and snapping at us no little when the doortroll lets us in direct. It is within that the most looking doll I see all evening asks us to shed any such thing as a weapon we have about us. I comply with same, although I assure her that there is less harm in me a two-year old baby, which I have mentioned already as my true reputation. Which goes for many others of the dwarfish persuasion as well, if they do not have beards. Gunner is as loathe to part with her Semopal auto-rifle and attached grenade tube as Susie is to entrust the tomahawk she carries at all times to the coatcheck, but we presently make our way inside the club proper.

The party has certainly been popping for some time when we arrive, furthermore the joint is jumping at about a mile per bound and with no sign of needing to rest its puppies whatever. The twenty-foot statue covered in neon that is always in the middle of Underworld 93 is blazing away, though what they are needing with such an item I can never figure. A tremendous crowd of guys and dolls are hollering at the stage so much that you would think Miss Mercurial could scarce make herself heard, but she most certainly is, at that.

With all four limbs of chrome, such as she always has on the Trids as well, and hair of such a light colour as to be almost silver too, she is hitting those notes like a Kung Fu master snapping bricks, and moving like no panther ever did unless it was made of mercury. Furthermore, she has the old whatjacallit that no sound system or vocal augmentation can even compete with, that flows out from the stage, hits each and every body present smack dab in the kisser, and sends them reaching into the sky for something that will make this bad old world shine with perfection. Even Padre looks like he is seeing a chrome-plated angel, and a couple of seconds before two is the time we shove along to meet this producer in a dressing room backstage.

This Max Foley is a short and chubby character with a fur coat, an expensive cigar, and very whitened teeth which he displays more than somewhat. He takes such a time to get down to brass tacks, particularly about what nyuyen he is prepared to pay us, and rattles on so much about the troubles of being obscenely rich and famous that I very quickly do not care for him whatever. In fact, a young doll with what few clothes she is wearing torn up some runs out his office crying very large tears just before we barge in, so at least three others of my crew are clearly wishing to give this guy a belting he will not recover from. I personally make sure to chisel all the dough out of this fink that I can.

“Alright, alright!” This Foley says like, “What is a little scratch among friends, am I right? Only you need to stick close to my girl for the next five days, making sure not even a hair on her head is mussed, for she runs out on her last manager five days before her contract expires, and I cannot legally engage a panzer battalion as her security detail before that time. I understand this dope Hernandez is taking his loss rather hard, and figure it for a sure thing he will do something drastic.”

Well, I am about to ask who his girl is, it not always being a straight proposition with these society types, when Maria Mercurial herself walks into her own dressing room, saying how glad she is that Max has employed such capable looking shadowrunners to ensure her safety. I am surprised that the fiery and steel limbed amazon I see on stage is seeming no less sweet and shy than any kitten, in person, but mostly I am thrown for such a loop that you could thread me around a couple of metroplexes. The crew are much the same, though Gunner has such presence of mind as to snap to attention. However, before I can put some questions to Miss Mercurial with perhaps answers that will look very good in my memoirs, a number of parties enter the room without opening the door. In fact, the door is reduced to very small matchsticks by a very large troll, and it is apparent that the persons accompanying him with automatic weapons have some business with Miss Mercurial also.

It will be remembered that we give up all weapons but our fists in the entryway, so I perceive that the business these parties have is by no means legitimate, and also that the troll with a pocket-knife somewhat bigger than myself is probably never in the boy scouts. Also, Foley is taking a very great interest in the back side of a dresser, while Miss Mercurial is screaming bright blue murder at the top of her alpha-augmented lungs. A most surprising thing to be sure, for I hear stories that she was a Runner herself at some point. And several more parties are arriving through the busted door, offering moral support to their chummers who have us plumb in their gunsights, so it is clear that the situation becomes a most serious one.

Prompt action is evidently called for, and my action is to promptly have it away just as fast as I can go, which is not so fast at that. Though I do not neglect to throw a large lead poisoner, to wit an Ares Predator, in the direction of Gunner Jane. For I perhaps do not mention that the back entrance to the cloakroom at Underworld 93 has no such maglock as will give me any trouble. While my chummers are taking in the show, I remove such items as lucky keepsakes, loose credsticks, and such a weapon as can be better concealed than Gunner’s assault rifle from this same cloakroom. As the un-legitimate looking parties open up the old blooie-blooie without stopping to introduce themselves, Gunner Jane is well able to offer them a riposte, bang-bang-bang, as she and my chummers dive for such cover as there is. One hostile character is very dead indeed, in considerably less time than it takes me to tell.

Padre’s stunbolts and manabolts, furthermore, were by no means checked at the entrance, and he starts slinging the old hocus pocus at once. Then Siouxie Suie charges forth with a Hoka-Hey-Lakotas and weighs in with her fists. Parties that meet with an adept’s fist very rarely have any response to same, for you understand that the no weapons policy of Underworld 93 is not unknown to me when I go looking for chummers. When Gunner empties the Ares Predator, being more than somewhat a troll, she does remarkable good work with her own fists, at that.

“All who live by the sword shall die by the sword,” Quoth Padre, making a small prayer or whatnot over the very dead parties around the dressing room, “Still, a senseless, terrible waste.”

“Life and death are one circle, holy man.” Siouxie retorts, “And these men died bravely enough.”

Gunner Jane spits on one of the dead, from where she is comforting Miss Mercurial, or whatnot, on the other side of the room, so you see she is very much a troll of parts. Max Foley has very little to say, and in fact looks not a well man, especially when I ask for double the fee we mention, but do not yet shake on, previous to this. 

Such security as Underworld 93 can boast of is none too slow in arriving, though there is little to be done when they arrive. The doorman hollers for us to slot and run towards the armoured van he has round the back, and to depart with Miss Mercurial in said van. Though it must be understood that he is not donating his pride and joy to the cause because he cares especially for us, or for Max Foley at that, but for none other than Miss Maria Mercurial herself.

Several more armed and hostile parties are previously laying for us between the backstage door and this van, but it is a computer with a jackpoint, off to one side of the dressing room, that I am previously hoofing it for. The management of Underworld 93 displays no little foresight in installing automatic sentry guns, loaded with gel rounds, over both front and back entrances of their establishment. Though they do not spring for such IC as hinders me at all from taking control of said batteries, so that the parties laying for us out back are all flattened out and groaning, as we flatten them out some more while hot-footing it to the van.

I will say that Gunner Jane is a very fair driver, although she never looks any way but straight ahead. Furthermore, if she puts her foot down any harder she will be Fred-Flintstoning this van down the street, and something tells me the doorman may be very sorry if he never got fire insurance when the engine commences to smoke, or indeed that he ever lends us his ride. However, the Gunner takes every curve clean as the letter Q, and goes sufficiently fast that we are troubled no more until we park and exit the van. Upon which a Bulldog full of unfriendly Runners such as I never know by name pulls up, also a lot of armed gangers pour out of an alley behind us, and the situation is commencing to look somewhat uncertain once again.

“FRAGGERS!” And I am much surprised it is Maria Mercurial who pipes up with this, “I’M NOT TAKING DREK FROM SCUM LIKE YOU EVER AGAIN! GEEK THESE CREEPS!”

And she opens up with a Browning Max-Power she finds in the van, and nails a ganger through the brainbox, in fact kills him very dead, from a clear distance of twenty yards across the parking lot. So, I perceive she is a lady who is full of surprises at all times.

I learn from Max Foley some time later, after we have taken out the trash and he has finished further spoiling our van by means of filling his pants, that it is many years of addiction to BTL chips which splits poor Maria’s noggin into three-or-four partitions. It is a matter of chance whether she acts the part of an Amazon, a businesswoman, or the harmless little girl she was before some very bad characters got hold of her.

I can only say that she is nothing to me but the singer, Miss Maria Mercurial, and a fair source of income for me also. I mean at that time, and also afterward, to do whatever will keep her from harm which I can be reasonably expected to do. Which turns out in the fullness of time to be a very great deal more than I expect myself, for I am already commencing to perceive that Max has some very serious reason for employing us as bodyguards. Indeed, I already suspect that his story of a mere contract dispute with this Hernandez, whom he says Maria takes a walk on because she suddenly discovers that he is dealing BTLs on the side, is strictly the old phonus balonus and not on the level at all.

-0-

Well there is a very great more I could tell involving Maria Mercurial, some very bad characters in the employ of Aztechnology, and also a certain dragon–I must make a statement here that making a deal with a dragon seems to me a fair slight better situation than being obliged to chuck slugs at one, as in a moment of madness I do. But it is a most famous story indeed, and you may read all there is to know about it on Shadowlands that you do not read in the papers. And you will be reading nothing there about Siouxie Susie, or Padre, or Gunner Jane, or Broadway, because it is Miss Maria Mercurial’s story, and by no means my own in any way.

There is a line of simsense chips called Lady for a Day, whereby some broken-down old babushka, who had nothing but misery in all her years before she slots this chip, can make believe she is Maria Mercurial. Young and beautiful, silver-strong and perfect, loved by so many millions of people as would shut off the Amazon or Niagara if you dumped them all in the middle of it. It is by no means a BTL, so it is perfectly safe, and I wish to say that the tears of happiness all over this old dame’s face, as she comes out from under, seem as real to me as any happiness ever does in this world. But when this world has so much more misery than happiness as it does, this may not be so very real at that. My point is that there is no story so big as this story of Maria Mercurial that the remainder of my life has any part in, but that the remainder of the whole of my life is not without its little enjoyments. 

What I am is a character without a story, always just around and about. Stuffed with other parties' stories to the top of his headware and holding onto them like his only treasure. I spend my working days floating about the Matrix, clipping suckers, doping the online gambling parlours and generally doing the best I can. The Matrix is a good honest lie, and a place of very great interest. Digital nyuyen have no solid existence, especially when they blow on the next horserace, but the things you can buy with nyuyen, or can’t without it, are solid enough for the time being. 

I am often around Seattle these days, especially at the Seamstress’ Union, a very fine joint indeed. Seattle seems almost more like the real New York City than New York City these days, what with all the passcards and policechecks that are investing the latter place. Though there is still room, as there always is, for competent parties to slip under all that heat and make it to Mindy’s Diner, where they will always be serving cheesecake and strudel between Forty-Ninth Street and Fifty.

It is a spoonful of warm chicken soup now that is sliding on down past my Adam’s apple, while the dumplings are simply plumb, and a melancholy song drifts over the joint. I savour the taste of this warm chicken soup more than somewhat, for it is more real than many other things in this world. Perhaps more real than me, for I am no guy that has ever warmed the heart of any party that ever existed, for as long as I am always around and about. Maybe the soup is more real than Siouxie Susie, Gunner Jane, the Padre, Silk, Joe the Joker and many other characters I never tell you about before, but it will be the Seventh World before long if I tell you about any of them.

That is all there is to tell except–what am I doing, talking as if Al Capone still rules Chicago, not the Bug Spirits, and as if the past tense in any form is a thing for rank suckers?

Perhaps a bad personafix got stuck in my chipslot. Perhaps a Free Spirit has been riding me since forever, that first touched down between the wars on Broadway. Or maybe I am a character in other people’s stories, and I can be anything I like at any time, so long as it’s me.

Why not roll a dice on it? Even in a bad old world such as this, some incredible things may happen when you roll the dice. 


End file.
